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Grant Imahara, Host of 'MythBusters' and 'White Rabbit Project,' Dies at 49:
Grant Imahara, an electrical engineer and roboticist who hosted the popular science show MythBusters and Netflix's White Rabbit Project, has died. He was 49.
Imahara died suddenly following a brain aneurysm, The Hollywood Reporter has learned. "We are heartbroken to hear this sad news about Grant. He was an important part of our Discovery family and a really wonderful man. Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family," a representative for Discovery said in a statement on Monday.
An electrical engineer and roboticist by training, he joined Discovery's MythBusters in its third season, replacing Scottie Chapman and was with the show until 2014 when he left with co-hosts Kari Byron and Tory Belleci. The trio would reunite in 2016 for Netflix's White Rabbit Project which lasted for one season. On MythBusters, Imahara used his technical expertise to design and build robots for the show and also operated the computers and electronics needed to test myths.
While part of the Mythbusters team, he sky-dived and drove stunt cars, on film sets he came into contact with some of the most iconic characters in screen history, installing lights onto Star Wars' R2-D2, creating the robot Geoff Peterson for The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson and working on the Energizer Bunny.
Also at Washington Post, Variety, Chicago Tribune, and The New York Times.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday July 15 2020, @12:45PM (5 children)
Because he was, in fact, the only engineering degree holder on the show AFAIK?
I remember Jamie was pimped out by the liberal arts types very hard a couple years ago because he had a "mechanical engineering" type of job but a Russian Lit degree. Nobody can explain why you'd hire a prop maker with Russian Lit experience over an actual mech engineer for a mech engineering job other than maybe cost. It was supposed to glamorize liberal arts but it made it look more like a handicap that only a rare great man could overcome.
Yeah I'm not so happy about that. The marketing is we watch pop culture then do art class for awhile then literally blow stuff up. The educational experience is good luck you sorry bastards in multivariate calculus and o-chem and some other weed out courses and unlike the TV show my EE classes had zero girls left after the first semester. The vocational experience is arguing downward with people below you not to F up your design that would actually work if they wouldn't F up the implementation while attending meetings above you spending thousands on salary/labor during meetings to save pennies on production, which works at scale but every little company thinks they're thousand dollar billionaires so the break even point for savings is usually like 1e15 years in the future. Honestly doing contract IT shit is not as fun as designing microwave communications gear but its less painful work experience and it pays better.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 15 2020, @03:07PM (4 children)
Yeah, the pitch we give to kids to entice them into engineering is totally bogus.
My kids can see what it really entails: Daddy sitting at the fucking desk all day long staring into a computer screen. WHEEE !!!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 15 2020, @06:24PM (1 child)
I took my son to the lab on a "take your kid to work" event and blasted him with liquid nitrogen and other stuff like that. That was years ago and he still talks about it and figures I have the coolest job in the world. (I'm a physicist, so, yes, I do, and you engineering weenies can stay at your desks) ;)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 15 2020, @07:41PM
Hey I'm a physicist too. I save up my allotted nitrogen allowance for liquid He. Dat shit cold.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 15 2020, @11:53PM
But if one doesn't make it into the management class, it is the best chance for a middle-class life where one can afford to even have kids, and not send them to a shithole school.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday July 16 2020, @06:54PM
Not all varieties of engineering are created equal in terms of curb appeal. My brother works at the advanced manufacturing lab at Ford; he works with 30 kinds of 3D printers, Augmented Reality kits, and VR kits every day. We took my kids in as a dry run for their "Take Your Kids to Work Day," and they had a blast with the 3D printed objects and AR & VR for half a day.
Honestly not every kid will be drawn to even that sort of thing, but for those with mechanical minds it's catnip.
Washington DC delenda est.